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Chaos/Fury: the only point in the identity the opponent cannot deny

Issue #200, 2026-09-12. Constructed, Duel (485). Rules version 2026-07-16. Card text verbatim from data/corpus_flat.txt; rules paragraphs pasted from data/Riftbound-Core-Rules-2026-07-16.txt. Read the unopposed clock first — this play is measured against it.

Built on yasuo-windrider-ride-the-wind-chain (CHAIN), which is the same two non-legend cards under a Calm/Chaos legend. No catalogued entry uses that pair alone, so the Chaos/Fury version below is not catalogued; it is written here as a play rather than as an entry because what is new about it is the TURN COUNT and the contested-board case, not the card set.

Why this play exists: three of Chaos/Fury's four point sources belong to the opponent

194.1 gives four ways to gain a point, and the pool prints fourteen cards whose text gains one. Filtered by 103.1.b to what a Fury/Chaos legend may run, there are exactly four:

carddomainwhat it needs
OGN-034 Tryndamere, BarbarianFuryan enemy garrison to attack — 807.1.d, "Being an attacker means the Unit has gained the Attacker designation during Combat", and 323.9 stages no Combat without opposing units
SFD-148 Draven, AudaciousChaosa combat to win — 466.3.a, "…are the only Player that has units remaining at this battlefield during this step"
SFD-214 Power Nexuscolourlessa Hold, so a battlefield you already control. (Corrected 2026-09-14: this row said the 4 rainbow needed UNL-087 Blue Sentinel's Add and was therefore illegal in the identity. 444.2.c refutes that verbatim — "Players may activate abilities that Add resources with the Reaction keyword at any time that they are instructed to Pay resources" — and 164.2 gives every Basic Rune two Reaction abilities, the second costing the RECYCLE rather than an exhaust, so the Power comes off the board in any identity. The play predates #200 batch 4, which reopened that refusal.)
OGN-205 Yasuo, WindriderChaosthree moves. Nothing else.

The first two pay only if the opponent presents a board; the third needs a battlefield you already control, which is exactly what an opponent takes from you. The Yasuo point is the only one in Chaos/Fury that an opponent cannot switch off by declining to play. That is the whole thesis of the play.

The legend is where Chaos/Fury loses to Calm/Chaos, and it is worth stating plainly

The five Fury/Chaos legends, measured against data/cards.json (name, base codes, text from the corpus):

Not one of them moves a unit. The catalogued Yasuo lines are Calm/Chaos because the Yasuo legend is: OGN-259 Unforgiven reads "2 Energy, exhaust: Move a friendly unit to or from its base", which is one of Yasuo's three moves, free, every turn. In Chaos/Fury you buy that move with a card instead — OGN-173 Ride the Wind, Chaos, E2 + 1 Power, "[Action] (Play on your turn or in showdowns.) Move a friendly unit and ready it." Note the Ripper's bounce is to HAND, which is not a Move at all (455 defines a Recall as a relocation to the BASE; a return to hand is neither), so it gives Yasuo nothing and costs you the body.

Legend chosen for the play: OGN-251 Loose Cannon, because the deck's real problem is finding six specific cards and it is the only one of the five that refills. Any of the five is legal.

The shuttle: three moves per Yasuo, one card each

Each Yasuo needs three moves in one turn (the card reads "The third time I move in a turn, you score 1 point" — a fourth move pays nothing). The route, with the Yasuos starting the turn at your base and ending at your battlefield, so 323.6 never strips your Control:

move 1   Standard Move, base -> battlefield A            144.4.a, cost = its own exhaust (144.2)
move 2   Ride the Wind (E2 + 1 Chaos Power)              449 effect move, unrestricted by 144.4,
         "Move a friendly unit and ready it"             and the ready refunds the exhaust (415.1)
move 3   Standard Move, base -> battlefield A            144.4.a again

One Ride the Wind per Yasuo, because it moves ONE friendly unit. Three Yasuo = three castings = 6 Energy + 3 Chaos Power for 3 points a turn, repeatable for as long as the bodies live.

Two rules keep it legal: 190.3.a.1 applies Contested only when "that Unit's controller does not already control that battlefield", so moving into a battlefield you already control stages no Showdown (323.8) and no Combat (323.9) — which matters because 144.1.c forbids the Standard Move "during a Showdown or Combat" and would otherwise strand moves 2 and 3. And the points are 194.1.c Gains by ability, not 469 Scores, so 470's once-per-battlefield cap never sees them.

Turn by turn, both columns

R = runes on the board. A rune pays 1 Energy (164.2.a, costs its exhaust) and can ALSO be recycled for 1 Power of its Domain (164.2.b, whose cost is the recycle) — but the recycled rune leaves the board for the Rune Deck (161.2.b) and returns at 2 a turn (315.3.b). Going first. [2026-10-24, #456: not the recycled rune. The Channel Phase's two come from the top of the Rune Deck (315.3.b, 430.1) and a recycled rune goes to the bottom (416.1, 416.1.b), so it is channelled again only when the deck reaches it: T7 at the earliest going first and T6 at the earliest going second with only the Channel Phase's two a turn (161.2.a, 485.7); each two more recycled push it a turn later, a card that channels more (430.2) brings it back sooner, and the next Channel Phase gives it back only once the Rune Deck is empty. The R column below already counts two a turn less every rune recycled, so no number in this play changes. The wording above is kept as history.]

                                                   UNOPPOSED        CONTESTED (they take B on T4)
T1  R=2   Play an E2 Chaos body to base.               0                 0
T2  R=4   Move it to battlefield A -> Conquer.        +1 = 1            +1 = 1
          Play a second E2 body (2 Energy spare).
T3  R=6   Hold A (+1). Move body 2 to B -> Conquer    +2 = 3            +2 = 3
          (+1). Play Yasuo 1: E5 + 1 Chaos,
          recycle 1 Chaos rune.              R=5
T4  R=7   Hold A and B. Play Yasuo 2.        R=6      +2 = 5            +1 = 4   (B is theirs)
T5  R=8   Hold A. Play Yasuo 3.              R=7      +2 = 7            +1 = 5
T6  R=9   Hold A. Three Ride the Wind:                +2 = 9  -> WIN    +1 = 6
          6 Energy, recycle 3 Chaos.         R=6
          Three Yasuo x three moves.         +3       (never needed)    +3 = 9  -> WIN

Unopposed the Yasuos never fire. The Hold curve reaches 8 on turn 6 by itself — exactly the baseline in the companion document — and the six cards of the package are dead weight. Contested, the Hold curve stalls at 1 point a turn and the Yasuo package is the difference between turn 6 and never. That is the finding, and it only becomes visible when the line is denominated in turns.

The Yasuos are ready on the turn after they are played (143.4 enters them exhausted, 315.1.b readies them), which is why Yasuo 3, played on T5, first fires on T6. That single fact sets the whole clock: the package cannot come online before turn 6 no matter how the mana falls, because 15 Energy and 3 Chaos Power cannot be paid before turn 5 on a curve that starts at 2.

Breaks to

Needs

One step that is NOT verified, stated here rather than in a footnote

The contested column assumes the opponent takes battlefield B on turn 4 and then leaves your battlefield A alone while you shuttle. A real opponent contests A instead, and the play has no answer to that beyond the garrison bodies — I did not walk a defence of A, and the identity's removal and protection suite is outside what this play measured. Read the contested column as an upper bound on what the package is worth, not as a script.